As well as offering a number of benefits tailored for each of its operating countries, Baker Hughes provides its employees with a core package to unify its global benefits proposition.
The energy technology firm serves energy and industrial organisations, operating in more than 120 countries worldwide with 58,000 employees. During the planning stage of implementing its benefits technology to a further 31 countries in three years in addition to existing provision in North America and the UK, it reviewed the complexity of benefits portfolios in each country, as well as the number of staff in each location, resource availability, stability and existing infrastructure complexity.
It also set up a steering committee and defined governing principles and programme objectives to support consistency of its global decision-making. The countries were then split into multiple waves and plans were made that reflect benefits and process complexity in each location. The plan was reviewed three months before each wave began to ensure it remains relevant and achievable.
The firm also centralised as much of its IT interface and integration build and communication strategy work as possible.
Magdalena Vintrova, total rewards director – regions, at Baker Hughes, explains: “In the last 12 months, we have implemented our benefits technology solution in 10 countries and currently have a further five in flight.
“Since we started the project, the firm has changed its business and HR structures, which impacted resource availability and continuity. We also realised that digitisation of manual processes requires not a replica of the existing path, but a process redesign, and our HRIS [human resources information systems] software did not always have the required configuration enabled to drive benefits eligibility, so we uncovered data gaps and inconsistencies. The foundation of our success has been the dedication of the project teams and our growth mindset.”
In terms of challenges throughout the process, any that emerged have been articulated and addressed promptly, and documented and shared across all the project teams. Its total reward team has acted as project leaders in addition to providing benefits, working on process re-design, data audits and gap closures.
Baker Hughes aims to offer both global and in-country benefits that reflect the needs of its employees, as well as market practice. Its core benefits include an employee assistance programme, which is available in all countries, and healthcare and life insurance programmes, with an 83% current global coverage.
Meanwhile, it provides benefits tailored for each location, such as flexible benefits and fitness reimbursement programmes. Its benefits management cycle ensures that provision is regularly benchmarked to remain competitive and attractive for employees.
Benefits technology enables benefits philosophy and strategy fulfilment globally to a common set of standards, while enabling locally relevant and market competitive individual benefit programmes. However, it will not necessarily create a unified proposition in a sense of identical design for each benefit in every country, says Vintrova.
“The technology does, however, offer the opportunity to provide an identical level of employee experience and delivery quality. We achieved this through consistent branding of the site, grouping of benefits in each country into three identical benefit pillars, and through integration of in-country and global benefit programmes within one site. Our communication and adoption strategy uses a standardised approach globally, with adaptable template documents and messages. The technology facilitates evolution of all benefits towards flexibility and choice,” she concludes.